As a fan of Pony Island and meta narratives, I should have had no issues liking this game. I just can't get there. I've refunded it, for perhaps my 3rd refund all-time in 15+ years of Steam presence.

This game takes everything Pony Island did well, misunderstands it, and retreads it poorly. The tone is uneven; the Steam store page says lite horror, the unsettling missives aimed at the player in the first minute of gameplay hint horror, and ultimately melt away to happy royalty-free music and OMG squees from offscreen characters. The dialogue is childish, plodding, heavy, laced with grammatical and spelling errors, and is also unskippable. Every letter writes too slowly to the screen. Every attempt at humor is a touch behind, the camera a bit less agile than it should be to meet the attempts at comedic timing. If you've heard that good stories "show, don't tell", this game is all tell. "I'm breaking out of the game!" says the main character, literally, in the first few beats, while you outrun the tutorial and try to get through it quickly to see if it gets better. Why are you breaking out, Main Character? Is it because it underwhelms?

The gameplay itself is basic. Pony Island's gameplay served the narrative but also evolved and eventually became clever all on its own. This madness consists of jumping over boxes while cringing at quips from the characters and unlocking moves and guns. Yes, the main character square gets a weapon wheel. Is this meant as a commentary on modern gaming, that every game requires guns? Or is it just that without it, you'd be double jumping squares until the end?

Controls are wonky - D-pad and analog stick work natively for movement on an XBox One controller, but some menus seem to require a mouse (great for a couch), and when you suddenly and unexpectedly acquire weapons, I guess you're supposed to figure weapons out on your own because I got a big UNKNOWN_BUTTON on my screen. Oh, but is that more clever meta-narrative? Did we Break The Game already? How quaint! Except now I have to sit here fiddling to see if - wait, ok, yes, of course, the right analog stick and right trigger shoot. I definitely broke the game, guys. I had to guess that the right trigger, the universal button to shoot things, makes a SQUARE shoot a GUN.

I wanted to like it. I tried to like it. Ultimately, I'm disappointed. If you want funny, there are far better games out there. If you want meta weirdness and discomfort and commentaries on gaming, there are much better titles that came before and still lead this niche. Pony Island, Evoland, The Hex, IMSCARED immediately come to mind as better choices for less cash.

As a fan of Pony Island and meta narratives, I should have had no issues liking this game. I just can't get there. I've refunded it, for perhaps my 3rd refund all-time in 15+ years of Steam presence. This game takes everything Pony Island did well, misunderstands it, and retreads it poorly. The tone is uneven; the Steam store page says lite horror, the unsettling missives aimed at the player in the first minute of gameplay hint horror, and ultimately melt away to happy royalty-free music and OMG squees from offscreen characters. The dialogue is childish, plodding, heavy, laced with grammatical and spelling errors, and is also unskippable. Every letter writes too slowly to the screen. Every attempt at humor is a touch behind, the camera a bit less agile than it should be to meet the attempts at comedic timing. If you've heard that good stories "show, don't tell", this game is all tell. "I'm breaking out of the game!" says the main character, literally, in the first few beats, while you outrun the tutorial and try to get through it quickly to see if it gets better. Why are you breaking out, Main Character? Is it because it underwhelms? The gameplay itself is basic. Pony Island's gameplay served the narrative but also evolved and eventually became clever all on its own. This madness consists of jumping over boxes while cringing at quips from the characters and unlocking moves and guns. Yes, the main character square gets a weapon wheel. Is this meant as a commentary on modern gaming, that every game requires guns? Or is it just that without it, you'd be double jumping squares until the end? Controls are wonky - D-pad and analog stick work natively for movement on an XBox One controller, but some menus seem to require a mouse (great for a couch), and when you suddenly and unexpectedly acquire weapons, I guess you're supposed to figure weapons out on your own because I got a big UNKNOWN_BUTTON on my screen. Oh, but is that more clever meta-narrative? Did we Break The Game already? How quaint! Except now I have to sit here fiddling to see if - wait, ok, yes, of course, the right analog stick and right trigger shoot. I definitely broke the game, guys. I had to guess that the right trigger, the universal button to shoot things, makes a SQUARE shoot a GUN. I wanted to like it. I tried to like it. Ultimately, I'm disappointed. If you want funny, there are far better games out there. If you want meta weirdness and discomfort and commentaries on gaming, there are much better titles that came before and still lead this niche. Pony Island, Evoland, The Hex, IMSCARED immediately come to mind as better choices for less cash.